Honey Vanilla Beehive Cupcakes

 

Happy Friday! The weekend is finally here and with it some beautiful sunshine and blue skies. The bright cheeriness outside on my way home from work today reminded me of these bright cheery Honey Vanilla Beehive Cupcakes that I had promised to share with you ohhhh about a month ago! Bad me, but I'm doing it now, that's what counts right?

 

I made these for the Winnie the Pooh baby shower I threw for my sister and her new baby Preston. You can read more about the baby shower, the food and the decorations here if you're interested! People at the shower went nuts for these things! I received compliment after compliment about how good they were, so hopefully you like them too.

 

Before you ask, no I didn't make the cute little bees on top of them (though you could do it yourself if you have time, patience and are good with fondant) - I bought these little sugar bees from Scoop n' Save in Langley for a super reasonable price (that's also where I found the adorable cupcake wrappers and the food colouring to make my icing that bright!!!).

 



Honey Vanilla Cupcakes
Minimally adapted from Half Baked - the Cake Blog

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup salted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 tsp vanilla

For the frosting:

• 3/4 cup salted butter
• 4 oz island farms cream cheese (or other cream cheese, softened)
• 3 cups icing sugar
• 3 tbsp. honey
• 1 tsp vanilla
• yellow food colouring (if desired)
• yellow sanding sugar

see below next picture for method

 

Method

1. For the cupcakes. Preheat oven to 350F and line two baking trays with cupcake liners. In a medium bowl, mix together dry ingredients -  flour, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl, mix together wet ingredients - buttermilk, honey and vanilla. Set aside.  In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time mixing until well incorporated. Gradually add the wet and dry ingredients, alternating, starting with and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix until incorporated (don't overmix though).
2. Using a medium sized scoop, scoop batter into cupcake liners until 2/3rds full. Bake in preheated oven for 18 minutes or until tops spring back lightly when pressed. Allow cupcakes to cool completely on a wire rack before frosting
3. For the frosting - cream butter and cream cheese until combined and fluffy. Gradually add sugar and continue mixing until fluffy. Mix in honey. Gradually add a few drops of food colouring at a time until you achieve desired colour. Put icing in large piping bag fitted with a large round tip and pipe swirls of icing onto cooled cupcakes.
4. Dust cupcakes with sanding sugar and place sugar bees on artistically right before serving.

And that's how you make these lovely cupcakes. One of the keys to making them taste delicious - not sickly sweet, is to use salted butter - the salt cuts the sweetness and balances the flavour perfectly!

Hope you enjoy these little beauties as much as we did! Happy Baking my Friends!